El Paso businessman and philanthropist Fred Loya Sr., who built a national auto insurance company and was known for his charitable efforts and amazing, extraordinary Christmas lights displays, has died, according to news reports.

Loya was one of El Paso’s most-prominent business leaders, building Fred Loya Insurance from a single-person office into one of the 20 largest Hispanic-owned companies in the nation.

Perches Funeral Home announced Loya’s death on a Facebook post on Sunday, Feb. 22, stating that Loya’s “leadership and entrepreneurial vision left a lasting impact on the El Paso community.” Funeral services have not been announced.

Loya’s death was confirmed in news reports by Channel 7-KVIA and Telemundo Channel 48-KTDO.

Fred Loya Christmas lights become an El Paso holiday tradition

The annual Christmas light show at the Loya home is a 20-year-old tradition in the Borderland, gaining a national reputation and named the best home holiday display in the nation on the TV special “The Great Christmas Light Fight” on ABC in 2014.

The joyful display has more than 450,000 lights synchronized to holiday, classical and pop music, which draws thousands of spectators nightly during the holidays in front of the Loya home on Paseo de Oro in the Montwood area of East El Paso

“We thought, well, why don’t we put on something for the people for everyone to enjoy. All the kids from one to 101,” Loya told the El Paso Times in 2017. “We thought of the light show and it just grew from there, you know. Now it’s bigger than all of us that put it together, originated it and thought it out. It’s really the family’s gift to the city of El Paso.”

Loya teamed up with El Paso County to sponsor the Holiday Lights on the Lake Spectacular at Ascarate Park from 2022 to 2023 before returning to the annual home holiday show in 2024.

‘I’m honored to help the youth of El Paso’

Fred Loya Insurance is also known for its sponsorship of various sporting events, including championship-level boxing events and youth baseball.

The Fred Loya Insurance Baseball Series showcases high school teams from across the region playing at the El Paso Chihuahuas baseball stadium, Southwest University Park.

In 2020, Loya was elected to the El Paso Baseball Hall of Fame for his decades supporting baseball at various levels, including assisting local teams raise funds to renovate fields, provide scoreboards and help children play the game.

“I’m honored to help the youth of El Paso and baseball is a noble sport,” Loya said in 2020. “Baseball helps so many in different ways. El Paso has a long history of baseball excellence and I’m honored to be recognized and to be a part of a special group.”

El Paso’s Fred Loya Insurance grew nationwide

Loya was born to immigrant parents in California in 1939. His father owned a grocery store. After college, Loya began working doing bookkeeping and buying cattle for the family ranch, he told a Hispanic Entrepreneurs Oral History Project at the University of Texas at El Paso in 2009.

In the 1970s, Loya was among the most successful agents for Farmer’s Insurance in El Paso and decided to start his own independent auto insurance business, Loya Insurance Group, in 1974 focusing on low-income, underserved communities, according to the history project.

Fred Loya Insurance, which started with liability insurance in 1985, would grow to thousands of employees in 700 offices at Walmart stores and supermarkets in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, Ohio and Illinois.

Loya turned his company over to his children in the early 2000s, remaining as chairman emeritus, according to the history project.

The U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce named Loya the 2010 Hispanic Businessman of the Year.

Daniel Borunda may be reached at dborunda@elpasotimes.com and @BorundaDaniel on X.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Fred Loya Sr. remembered for El Paso business success, Christmas spirit